The present invention relates in general to method and apparatus for detecting a parking maneuver of a motor vehicle, and, more specifically, to adapting operation of driver assist systems according to the occurrence of a parking maneuver.
In motor vehicle manufacture, driver assistance functions are increasingly provided to enhance vehicle operation and customer satisfaction. Assistance functions are intended to provide the driver of the motor vehicle with help in frequently occurring troublesome, difficult, or hazardous driving situations. Known assistance systems include adaptive cruise control systems which automatically adapt the speed of the motor vehicle in such a way that a necessary safety distance from a vehicle traveling ahead is maintained, lane changing assistants which check the blind spot for other motor vehicles during a change of lane, and parking assistants which maneuver a motor vehicle semi-automatically or fully automatically into a parking space.
A problem in many of these assistance functions is that their acceptance by the driver is low because their presence and their operation are unaccustomed and therefore can appear to be more difficult or distracting to the driver than the problem addressed by the assistance function. Furthermore, driver control behaviors may not always clearly reveal the intention of the driver, e.g. whether or not the driver is intending to park the vehicle versus a continuation of normal driving. Another example of a driver assist system is referred to as an “auto-hold function” which automatically keeps the brakes applied after a motor vehicle has been stopped by a manual braking operation, with the automatically-applied brake pressure keeping the vehicle stationary until the driver operates the accelerator pedal. During a parking maneuver, however, it may in fact be desired to control movement of the motor vehicle using only the brake pedal while idling (i.e., creeping) without activating the accelerator pedal. Since the act of stopping the vehicle before backing into a parking space may have initiated an automatic brake hold event, it would be necessary to manually cancel the autohold function—which may be frustrating to the driver.